


Granite Heart, Pine Heart

by zcl219



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: 74th Hunger Games, AU, Canon-Typical Violence, Capitol food, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dark Katniss Everdeen, F/F, Forced Suicide, Head Injury, Katniss Joins the Careers, Kinda, Kissing, Late Night Conversations, Minor Katniss Everdeen/Glimmer, Out of Character, Somewhat, Suicide, The Capitol (Hunger Games), Token
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26418547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zcl219/pseuds/zcl219
Summary: It’s a trap. It’s all a trap. She is the acorn you leave for the squirrels so they’ll go happily into their noose.But if I’m going to die, I’ll die a little happy.
Relationships: Clove/Katniss Everdeen
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	Granite Heart, Pine Heart

“I don’t want to set the world on fire. I just want to start a flame in your heart.”

-“I Just Want to Be the One You Love” by Boxout

_Her hair is darker than mine._

That’s the first thing Katniss notices about Clove. Clove’s hair hangs like a sheet around her shoulders before a stylist pulls it back to make room for a golden helmet. Cato’s eyes fix on Katniss like a predator, but Clove’s face is the definition of true focus. Everything under her gaze is transparent, and Katniss averts her eyes before she knows Clove has seen through her too.

At night Katniss dreams of home. Squirrels. Rolls. Prim’s laugh. An explosion. A stray bark. And, somewhere in it all, her fingers sorting the tendrils of Clove’s dark hair into the security of a braid.

The blades are an extension of Clove. She sends them slicing through the air before they make their homes dead center in their target. Every time they make contact, Katniss imagines them resting comfortably between her bones, happily dividing her blood vessels into oblivion. Clove’s hands, in the moments before release, are so sure. Katniss imagines her ribs contorting to the curves of Clove’s palm, index finger brushing against her neck, so she might feel as secure as the knife in Clove’s grip.

Once Katniss knows that Clove has seen her, there’s not enough training in the world to forget the feel of her searching gaze.

  
Clove appears like a bear out of the woods, hidden by shadows until her form is all too apparent. She’s not tall or wide, but she’s well-fed. In the dim of Katniss’s bedroom, there’s a smirk on Clove’s face.

“You’re hiding something,” Clove says. It’s all the 'hello' they’ll ever have.

“You’ve caught me. I snuck some chocolate-covered strawberries for later.” Sarcasm, in the face of terror. What a defense mechanism. But it works. Clove’s face loosens into a smile and something lights her eyes, even though they remain close to black.

“Can I have one?” To think, satisfying someone like her could require so little effort.

“How do you make a snare like that?” Glimmer asks. She’s too pretty. She’d be too easy to love and lose.

“Is that a taunt or a question?”

“Depends on how good you are,” Clove appears at Glimmer’s side. Katniss feels her heart stop a moment. She averts her eyes to her handiwork in the fake grass.

“Well, it gets the rabbits every time.”

The career girls laugh. It’s Clove that kneels down first, and makes an offer. “Thirty minutes of snare training for thirty minutes of knife throwing. Does that sound fair?”

Glimmer clears her throat.

Clove rolls her eyes. Close up, under the hissing fluorescents, they’re green, but still dark enough to get lost in. “Or a half hour of archery lessons.”

Katniss smiles and tries to hide it by looking down, but she know Clove has seen.

“I miss the mountains.”

“I miss the woods.”

They sit on the plush blanket, a dwindling pile of chocolate-covered cherries on the plate between them. Clove reaches into her pocket and grips whatever she pulls out. After a silent minute she spreads her palm and shows Katniss a piece of granite shaped vaguely into a heart. Katniss reaches out a finger to stroke the speckled thing. It’s rough, not like the smooth substance that makes up Capitol tables and countertops.

“My dad brought it home to me when I was four. I’ve loved it ever since.”

“He works in the mines.” It’s not a question, but it should be.

“He does. I hate him going down there. Every time he goes, I’m afraid he won’t come back.”

“I know the feeling.”

“But he always comes home.”

Katniss looks into Clove’s eyes. The green of them is like the forest, speckled with brown and black. She pictures herself strolling into those eyes and walking until hitting the tree line, just before the clearing of her brain. “Not always.”

“Oh,” Clove murmurs and clutches the stone tight. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

The rest of the fruit is consumed in silence. Clove is still rubbing the jagged rock and pressing her thumb into the sharpest bit at the bottom. “This is my last line of defense,” she says, making Katniss look at her again. Clove is looking at the rock. Her voice is low enough to draw Katniss closer. “I could probably get someone in the eye at fifty yards. And if it comes to hand to hand…I’d rather have a knife, but granite isn’t so bad.”

An 11. One point above a 10, but it feels like an insurpassable gulf.

Clove keeps her eyes straight while they all wait their turn with Caesar. Clove’s dress is coral. It feels too pretty for her. She should be in something black and white, with jagged edges and plenty of shimmer. Katniss’s fingers itch to comb through Clove’s hair, taking out the ridiculous buns and turning them into something more practical. But practical isn’t the name of this game.

“I’m the best. I could kill you from clear across this stage.”

That shouldn’t spark butterflies. That shouldn’t seem so intriguing coming from her. On the screen the other tributes watch, Clove’s eyes look black again, but Katniss knows their true color. Maybe from up close, the pale orange brings out their lovely pine hue.

Katniss waits. She waits for less time than she expects. Clove’s hair is drying into waves when she sneaks in. She’s dressed in layers. Katniss pulls out a tin of cookies, and she’s relieved when Clove sits on the bed and starts to nibble. She’s surprised when Clove is the first one to speak.

“That dress was beautiful. So you.”

“Why do you say that?”

She smiles. “Because you had your flames on you the whole time, but you kept them hidden. And it seems you keep them hidden from everyone except the game makers.”

“That’s not true.”

“How else do you explain an 11?”

“They liked what they saw me do.”

“Snares don’t get you an 11.”

“No, they don’t.”

“What’re you hiding from me?”

Ice freezes Katniss’s veins and hands. She looks at Clove, at the forest in her eyes. Katniss can see herself in there, arrow and bow in hand. She sees bears in there, and turkeys the size of houses. She sees rabbits. She can hear mockingjays, just over the rush of a river beyond the trees.

“I’m sure there’s plenty you’re hiding from me.”

“Nothing like this. You know what I can do.”

“And I can hunt. Now you know, I suppose.”

“’Hunt’? Really? That’s all I get?”

“What do you want?”

“I want you with us. But I can’t propose that if I don’t know what you can do.”

“You want me with you?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe you do. But your friends will kill me the first chance they get.”

“No they won’t.”

“Sure they will.”

“I won’t let them.”

“Why should I believe that?”

Storm clouds move in. The green recedes under Clove’s eyelids, the black of her pupils taking the space that remains.

Her lips are on Katniss’s. The crumbs of butter cookies sting enough to make her aware. Clove’s hair is damp between her fingers. Katniss can taste bread on her tongue and feel the prickle of pine needles on her arms. Clove’s nose is granite where it presses against her skin.

_It’s a trap. It’s all a trap. She is the acorn you leave for the squirrels so they’ll go happily into their noose._

_But if I’m going to die, I’ll die a little happy._

There are a few seats open, but Katniss takes the seat beside Clove. Clove’s face is smooth while she thinks about how real this is about to become. The reality of it is settling in around them all.

_It’s no different, Katniss._

But it has to be. It has to be different. Putting an arrow in the little boy from four has to be different from putting one in a deer. Killing the timid looking girl from seven has to be different from snaring a rabbit. It has to be. It has to be. It has-

The lights cut out, and the helicarrier jolts to life. Katniss’s stomach turns. Clove moves in her peripheral vision. Katniss catches the second look Clove gives her. Clove smiles. The blue of the carrier’s lights make her green eyes that much greener. Katniss wishes she could muster a smile back.

_Haymitch is wrong. Going for the bow is so much easier than running for my life._

Katniss doesn’t see fear in anybody who catches one of her arrows. She only shoots people in the back. But she does see fear in Glimmer’s eyes, which makes her all the more lovely.

There’s no fear in Clove’s eyes. Instead there’s the smile again. Katniss wonders if the cameras catch that, or if that image will be lost to the editing room’s trash heap. 

“Don’t be so surly, you’re better with a spear than you ever were with that bow.”

“Oh, what do you know? That’s all you ever trained with.”

“I know that Gloss and Quartz both said to use the weapon we have to think about the least.”

“I hate spears. They’re not nearly as easy to carry.”

“You could make a bow,” Katniss says.

Marvel laughs, and it’s such an amused sound that Katniss smiles. Glimmer glares at her. “That’s not helping.”

“But you could. I do it all the time.”

“So what, you’re a secret career or something?” Cato stops walking and looks at Katniss. Her fingers itch for an arrow, but they’re stilled when she catches Clove’s gaze. There’s a smile, and something softer in the green of those eyes.

A fern brushing against her ankle. A falling leaf caressing her cheek before it hits the ground.

“Just trying not to starve is all,” Katniss answers

Three of them laugh. Katniss doesn’t, and neither does Clove.

Katniss returns to camp with a few rabbits and a pheasant. There’s dried meat in their supplies, but cooking meat over a fire out in the open gives the slightest sense of freedom. Katniss closes her eyes and pretends she’s in the clearing at home. And then her eyes open again when the three of them reappear. She realizes she’s been asleep, and Clove has kept their fire going.

“Way to ‘keep watch,’” Cato says to Katniss.

“Way to ‘go hunting.’ I didn’t hear one cannon,” Clove responds.

“If you were paying attention you would’ve.”

“You can’t miss the sound of a cannon,” Clove says

“Sure you can, you just did.”

“No you didn’t,” Marvel says. Katniss smiles inside, rises to her feet, and follows Clove away from their camp.

It’s not so hard to find someone. A fire gives them away. Katniss spots the back of a head, some short hair in an indiscriminate dark shade. Clove squeezes her arm. Katniss meets her eye. Clove nods before moving into a flank position

Without the rest of them riling her up, Clove is so much like Gale. Her steps are silent and deliberate. There’s a slight glint off her knife before it flies The only noise that follows its journey is a cannon, and then some screams that could be cheers or complaints back in the cornucopia’s direction.

When Katniss sees her again, Clove’s intense focus slips away and a grin takes its place. “Looks like we’ve already beaten them for tonight.”

Katniss’s heart feels full of the Capitol’s bubbly water. She smiles, and laughs when Clove does it first. 

“Why bother with those?” Glimmer seethes as Katniss sets snares. “If you can shoot perfect, there’s no point.”

“Me and my arrows can’t be everywhere at once.”

Glimmer huffs. Marvel chuckles. “Cheer up, help me make nets.”

“I don’t want to make nets. Why wouldn’t they just give us two bows?”

“So you’d be angry and want to kill each other,” Clove says. “Wouldn’t you want to see how that turns out?”

“I hope it’s entertaining someone. This is just embarrassing.”

“I bet it is,” Katniss says. “And they can’t wait to see how our storyline ends.”

It doesn’t end with a battle for the bow. It ends with a tracker jacker nest that falls on the group, and kills Glimmer. In her haze, Katniss looks back to see Glimmer’s bloated corpse. Her eyes then go to the trees. Peeta is there with Rue. When Katniss hallucinates them, they’re smiling one minute and shaking the next.

Marvel pours water over his head, and when he speaks he keeps his eyes on the ground. “We shouldn’t have all stayed there. We should’ve taken our usual shifts. Then we wouldn’t have fallen asleep like that.”

“Quit it,” Cato says.

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck me? Fuck you. Your chances of going home just shot up.”

“And what am I supposed to say when I get home? When I see her parents?”

“Nobody will blame you,” Katniss says. “They’ll blame the ones that dropped the nest on her. And they’ll be long dead by then.”

He stops and looks at her. His eyes are blue like Prim’s, like Peeta’s. There’s no anger in them. There’s no kindness either. There’s something akin to sadness, and adjacent to surprise, but he gives up on words and goes to the river to refill his water bottle.

Katniss’s snares give up two bodies. In the next day they hear three cannons, and when she checks her snares two of them are gone.

“That’s not fair to them,” Clove says while they walk together during their ‘shift’ of the night. Clove’s voice is low, just above the sounds of leaves and twigs under their feet. “You don’t even have to see the bodies to keep racking them up.”

“Who’s counting?”

“Cato is, for sure.”

“That’s too bad.”

“He hasn’t gotten a decent kill on his own since the bloodbath. And he blames you, I think.”

“Why, does he like bows too?”

She chuckles. The smile that follows it makes her heart splutter. “No. You thinned the herd at the bloodbath. Not as many targets to search for now.”

“Poor Cato,” she says, and they laugh quietly.

Clove gets another kill that night, and like before this victim doesn’t see it coming.

In the light of the dead tribute’s fire, Clove’s green eyes look more brown than green, the color of fallen leaves or healthy soil.

A pine tree brushes Katniss’s cheek on the walk back. Clove tends to push away any stray branches with her knife hand. The other one is busy holding Katniss’s.

Cato has recruited the boy from 3 when the girls return come morning. He’s hastily reburying mines, his small voice raising in shouts every time Marvel almost detonates one. The smaller boy seems glad when the other boys leave at dusk, which comes sooner than it should. The girls don’t say anything to him. It gets dark. They eat. They go to sleep that night, leaving the boy from 3 awake with a spear.

Clove falls asleep with her hand clutching a knife and her head on Katniss’s arm. Katniss nuzzles into her hair. Her arm is numb when she falls asleep. Of all the places to sleep with a numb arm this isn’t one of them, but she doesn’t care. With every artificial breeze, every beautifully fake tree, and every boom of the cannon, their time is drawing closer to an end.

By the end of the first week, 24 has been taken down to ten. It’s the five of them, Rue, Peeta, Shelby, Thresh, and Foxface.

Ten becomes nine when, after three days with them, the boy from 3 detonates the mines surrounding their loot. He thinks he’ll get away with it while the girls are searching and the boys are asleep, but the boys wake easily. Katniss and Clove come running back to camp to see their supplies destroyed, the boy’s frail corpse, and Cato screaming in anger.

“You! You were in on it!” Cato screams when he catches sight of them.

Katniss feels their alliance unraveling before she knows it.

Katniss launches an arrow just as Marvel raises his spear. His trajectory goes awry, missing Katniss and grazing the back of Clove’s head. But neither of them notice as they take off running from Cato.

Katniss thinks they’ll hide in a tree until she sees how Clove’s steps are wobbling and how much blood has poured down the back of Clove’s jacket.  
“Clove,” she reaches a hand out. Her own voice sounds distant. Clove grabs onto her arm and Katniss drags her into the foliage long enough to be sure they’ve lost Cato. She holds Clove’s head in her lap, trying to press the tarp from her bag into the wound. Every time she moves it, there’s more blood.

“How bad is it?” she asks, voice thick.

Katniss pulls the tarp away to see blood and skull, but no brains. Past her own worries she says, “You’ll be fine.”

“Katniss?”

“What?”

“I wish we were home.”

The words _we_ and _home_ conflict. Katniss pictures the cliff faces in 12’s forest made out of granite. She pictures a mountain covered with lush green and not mine shafts. She picture food and a house that’s not a shack, and a fine layer of coal dust covering it all.

“Me too.”

“I’ll see it in my dreams,” Clove murmurs. Panic floods Katniss. She slaps Clove, making her eyes shoot open unfocused.

“No. You can’t sleep.”

“But I’m tired…”

“You have to stay with me.”

“Please, just a few minutes…”

Katniss grabs her by the head and leans down far enough to slam their mouths together. Their teeth clack and their lips don’t align, but she’s not looking for pleasure. She just needs Clove’s tongue to move with purpose, and Clove’s hands to reach up into her hair. When they do, Katniss pulls away. Clove’s eyes are open, but the black of her eyes is swallowing up the green.

“Stay with me.”

“Okay,” she says, still slurring. Katniss drags her to sit up and guides her down to the river. It’s a bad place to be. She can feel Cato looking for them there, but Clove needs her wound washed even though the blood keeps coming. Katniss unties the puffed sections of her ponytail and lowers her head, watching red streaks slip away with the stream. Clove clenches her teeth. When Katniss sits her up again Clove vomits the duck jerky and apples from the night before and passes out in Katniss’s arms. Katniss hears screaming before she realizes it’s coming from herself. She drags Clove into the nearby cave. She cries.

“Clove…wake up…please wake up…Clove…”

Katniss keeps her hand and the tarp clamped over the wound. The slip of plastic and blood makes Clove hard to hold. Katniss clutches tighter when something nears the mouth of the cave. _If I let her go, she’ll die. If I keep hold of her and don’t shoot whoever is here for us, we’ll both die._

Except, it’s not Cato, or any other tribute. What she hears is the looping beep of a parachute. It takes everything in Katniss to unstiffen her muscles, set Clove down, and crawl to the cave’s entrance.

-Nice kissing, sweetheart, -H-

Underneath the note is a jar of salve. Katniss takes fingerfuls of the greasy stuff and applies it until the bleeding stops.

For two days Katniss waits for cannons, and with every one she thinks ‘this is it.’ But when she reaches over to Clove, she can feel a pulse. There are two cannons in those days. At night, Katniss doesn’t go out to see who has fallen.

“Katniss…” Clove croaks. Katniss thinks she’s dreaming, until she knows she’s not. She makes Clove drink water and eat a small piece of jerky, but that won’t go far in getting back to the healthy build she’d entered with.

They sit together for a long time. Katniss strokes her greasy hair. Clove’s fists clutch her shirt. Her steps are wobbly and short lived.

The scene outside is untouched. Clove rinses her hair in the river. The current is weaker than before, like it’s drying up. Katniss fills both their bottles upstream of Clove.

Clove lays on the smooth river rocks. Katniss gazes at her long enough that Clove opens her eyes and smiles slightly. Her eyes are a dulled green. The forest in a storm’s aftermath, or maybe in its moments before. But they’re open and alert, and Katniss feels something in herself relax.

“You’re okay,” Katniss says, a crack in her voice.

“I’m okay,” she repeats. She sits up and waves Katniss over to her

They sit there for a while, Clove’s head on Katniss’s shoulder, Katniss’s hand rubbing the bloodstained back of Clove’s jacket. Then, carefully, she braids Clove’s hair.

“I wish I had some hairpins,” Katniss murmurs to herself once the loose braid is hanging down Clove’s back.

“This is more than enough,” Clove says, and turns to Katniss. “Why’d you do it?”

She thinks for a long moment. “Because that spear was probably meant for me. And I’d hope you would do the same for me.”

“I don’t know that I would’ve.”

“Can you promise me something? Not that, but something as important as that?”

“Anything.” Clove says. The word hits Katniss in the chest. She loses herself for a long moment. Her mouth is dry from more than dehydration.

“It’s going to be one of us that goes home. But if it’s not me…I need you to take care of my family.”

“What about-“

“That can’t go on forever. There’s too many people already leaning on him. But you can take care of them without it draining you.”

There’s a long minute of silence. Then Clove nods.

“Say it.”

“I promise I’ll take care of your family.”

She could say anything in that husky voice and Katniss would believe her. “Okay.” She pauses. “What about you?”

“Nobody at home relies on me.”

“You really think that?”

“I really know it. But I’d still like to go home.”

“I know.”

When Clove can stand it, Katniss insists they make their camp in the trees. Clove lags behind Katniss but eventually makes it to a branch right beside her own.

A butterfly lands beside Katniss on a cluster of pine needles. She lifts its body onto her fingertips and looks at the black wings speckled with blue and green.

When Katniss looks over at Clove, she finds her staring and smiling. She’s also running her fingers over the heart-shaped chunk of granite.

The butterfly flaps away.

Clove stows the rock in her pants pocket before she can drop it into the ground cover 40 feet down.

Nine left had become eight when Katniss shot Marvel. Eight had become six in their days in the cave. Minus the two of them, that meant they had four opponents left. Of them could be Cato, Thresh, Rue, Peeta, Foxface, and Shelby. Katniss wonders who of them she’d least like to encounter, but it’s all of them. She wants death she doesn’t have to see.

Katniss makes snares. Clove lags behind her while they walk. Katniss sets them mostly around the edges of meadows, or near the quickly drying lake.

They have to spend the night on the ground. Katniss wraps the bloody tarp tight around them both. Clove still lays on Katniss’s shoulder, but leaves her arm mostly free in case she needs it. She can feel Clove’s hand clutched around a knife. Her supply has dwindled.

The night is too fast. Dawn comes in a handful of hours, and it’s accompanied by cries for help. A high, female voice. The screaming doesn’t sound like any of the voices from the interviews.

Clove runs, _runs_ to the sound. Katniss stumbles trying to catch up. She realizes they’re running back towards the snares. Katniss loses Clove, making her stop a moment and evaluate where she is. The screaming stopping, and the cannon that follows gets her feet moving again.

At the clearing’s edge she sees two things. The first is Clove, leaning on her knees, breathing heavily as the adrenalin wears off. The second thing is Rue’s corpse strung upside down by one of her snares. Her eyes and mouth are open, her curls hanging down from her head. The blood from the knife wound is trickling up her shirt and over her face before falling into the grass.

Clove, still thinking she’s alone, retrieves the knife from Rue’s chest.

For a moment, Katniss sees her sister’s face instead of Rue’s, and her hand flies to one of her arrows. When Clove catches her eye, her head turns quickly to the other side of the clearing. She’s expecting someone else to be there, causing Katniss’s distress. Instead she sees foliage and birds, flowers, and she doesn’t want to turn back.

Katniss refuses to put the arrow back. If she does, it’d be like admitting what she thought. Already she feels their delicate relationship fraying, and she doesn’t want to hasten its demise

“I didn’t enjoy that,” Clove murmurs a little later, their camp packed onto their backs and their searching pace slow.

“I know,” Katniss says back. Her hand is still clutched around the arrow. Might as well. She’ll have to use it any minute now.

They check the old career base. All of their supplies is still burned to a crisp. But it was their best shot at finding food.

“I’ll go find food,” Katniss offers. It should be nine in the morning, but the sun is at noon already.

“Me too,” Clove says. They walk in different directions. When she’s sure Clove has walked away, Katniss stands for a long minute and wonders what to do next. The thought of death crashes over her, then washes away, then returns with force. She’s so busy thinking she doesn’t realize she’s running.

But she stops short at the sound of Claudius Templesmith’s voice ringing through the arena.

“Attention tributes, attention. The regulations requiring a single victor have been suspended. From now on, two victors may be crowned, if both originate from different districts. This will be the only announcement.”

Katniss stops. The thoughts roll over her, and she feels herself kneeling down, regret and joy and terror washing over her in tandem. She doubles back.

And then she’s running again when she hears a cannon. “Clove?” she says, but holds her voice back at the memory of how Rue’s screams had given her away.

She spots Clove’s bloody jacket, holding a pile of nightlock. She loses her voice control and yells for the other girl. Her words are cut off by Clove slamming into her. They frantically check one another over. Rage sparks when Katniss sees a handful of nightlock berries in Clove’s hand. She knocks the berries out of her grasp.

“Damn you, Clove! A lifetime of career training and you can’t spot poison berries?”

“I’m fine,” Clove says, trying to keep her voice down.

“Barely!” She grabs Clove by the shoulders, then pulls her into a tight hug. Clove hugs her back just as tight. When their grips loosen on each other, Clove brings a hand up to Katniss’s face. Her thumb rests on Katniss’s cheek, fingers brushing against her neck, holding her there for a short kiss.

“Did…did you hear?”

“I did,” Katniss whispers.

“We can go home,” Clove whispers back.

The emotional cocktail comes back, but joy is the strongest feeling now, in the wake of near heartbreak. “We can. We can go home.”

Katniss stows the berries from Foxface’s hand in her pocket. “Maybe the other pair left likes berries too.”

Clove chuckles. “Maybe. Maybe they’ll make it just that easy for us.”

They walk along as the accelerated time does its job. They go hand in hand. There’s a bliss to their movements. Their end is so close. Just a few kills between them and the real version of this. Katniss closes her eyes for brief moments to imagine them in the forest outside of 12, or maybe in some tree-laden part of 2.

Katniss applies more balm to Clove’s scalp, then re-braids her hair. She pushes the image of Rue, and of PrimRue, out of her mind while she works. Clove touches the braid when it’s done.

“How do I look?” she asks jokingly.

Katniss gazes into the soft green of her eyes under what might be their last sunset together. The orange-yellow brings out the green, makes it brighter, makes Katniss feel like she could reach in and brush her hands against something soft and lush and alive.

“Like you’re ready for the finale.”

They climb into the trees when the dark descends. Katniss keeps her bow ready, and Clove does the same with her blades.

Their tree, and the trees around them, combust. They have to jump down and narrowly avoid direct flame on the ground. The fire chases them all the way to the cornucopia, and a pack of dog mutts have chased someone else there too. The flames recede from the cornucopia once the girls have climbed on top.

What’s waiting for them on top of the cornucopia isn’t much better. Cato’s left arm is gone. Peeta has something wrong with his leg.

It’s a shock to see Peeta. What’s more shocking is to see him with his arms around Clove’s throat, ready to break her neck. He also has her right arm pinned back, making her one wrong move from, at the very least, a dislocated shoulder. Katniss has her boot on the place where Cato’s arm used to be, her arrow pointed at his skull. But every second that goes on she feels him struggling less, and the pool of blood around her feet growing.

“Do it. Kill us all,” Peeta’s voice is unrecognizable. “You don’t need anyone else, do you?”

Her mind goes to him, and the bread, and her eyes leave him. Peeta screams when Clove lands the sharp end of the granite heart in the back of his hand. He screams and she shoves him off the cornucopia. Katniss lands an arrow in Cato’s neck. Two cannons, one right after the other.

The dogs disperse and the flames extinguish. The sun comes back up again. They’re kissing before they realize nothing is happening.

“Attention tributes, attention. There’s been a mistake. The earlier amendment to the rules was meant to say that two victors may be crowned so long as they originate from the same district. Good luck.”

The two of them slide off the cornucopia, numb and aghast, bloody and singed.

Katniss looks up and sees a knife in Clove’s hand. She’s staring at it, her face pinched in anger. Katniss doesn’t go for an arrow. Clove meets her eye, and her top lip quivers. From here her eyes are almost black, so easy a place to be lost.

“I can’t.”

“I can’t,” Katniss responds. The handful of yards between them seems infinite. Clove holds the small knife, hand shaking, then turns the blade towards herself. “NO!” Katniss sprints, tackling her to the ground. Clove sniffles and wraps her arms tight around Katniss.

“How could you? How could you do that? I won’t do it now…I lost the nerve…”

“We’ll figure something out,” Katniss soothes, but her own voice is shaky now.

“We can’t…it’s over. They’re going to get what they want, and they want a winner.”

“Nobody that comes out of here wins,” Katniss murmurs, and it makes Clove’s strained noises worse. Katniss forces her to her feet before anything else can happen.

Clove doesn’t see Katniss’s hand ghost over her pocket. Clove doesn’t see the purple stains on Katniss’s hands when they embrace again. Katniss lingers with their faces inches apart. She thinks of going for a kiss, but settles for looking into the pines in her eyes. Then Katniss’s winds her arm’s tight around Clove’s shoulders and hugs her tight enough that they’re stood cheek to cheek. Her voice is soft in Clove’s ear.

“Clove?”

“Yes, Katniss?”

“Remember our promise.”

Katniss thinks she can hear the fanfare sounding as her world goes black.

It actually begins a moment after, when Clove falls to the ground under the weight of Katniss’s body. The pomp and celebration drowns out the sound of Clove’s screaming. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hello folks! Hope you enjoyed this fic.  
> I had fun with this story.  
> The mains are probably both out of character to some extent, but it was still a blast to write. I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> Inspiration for this piece came from my time watching copious amounts of Hunger Games edits of Instagram. I've seen a few dozen for these two, but I have four in particular that I'd like to credit with inspiration:  
> 1\. glvmmxr's video from June 22  
> 2\. okayclove's video from June 6  
> 3\. knxvesfuhrman's video from February 17  
> 4\. kvtniss's video from April 7
> 
> These are the videos I've had on a loop while writing this. 
> 
> Once again, I hope you enjoyed this work! Thanks so much for reading.


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